If you spend much time on TikTok these days, you are likely familiar with the term "betrayal trauma."
Content creators like Kylene Terhune (@kyleneterhune), who has almost 100,000 followers, do deep dives into the topic.
Terhune speaks honestly about discovering her husband's affairs and how they are both recovering.
This certainly isn't a new or novel topic, and most folks are pretty clear how they feel about it.
A Research Co. study published in May found that most Canadians don't believe affairs are morally acceptable.
Only 16% of Canadians think married men and/or women having an affair is OK.
Infidelity is one of the main causes of divorce, according to Stats Can.
The agency cites the current rate of divorce in Canada as 5.6 per 1,000.
The Squamish Chief caught up with Laila Presotto, Squamish psychotherapist at the Elaho Medical Clinic, to learn more about betrayal trauma and whether relationships can survive it.
What follows is an edited version of that conversation.
Are you familiar with the term "betrayal trauma," and is it a thing?
Do I coin it with that term? No. But I often call it attachment trauma —meaning, at the root of our being, it is to be dependent on our primary person. This is your person. This person is your gentle place to land. They have your back. And they accept you unconditionally. And so attachment trauma is when our primary person is the source of our wounding or our trauma.
It's really up to the perpetrator of the trauma to demonstrate the repair of that hurt that was inflicted as a result of lies, infidelity — whatever it might be. I educate couples on what trauma is so they can understand it together and have a shared framework to work with it.
Is this quite common, and can couples survive it?
Attachment trauma is common, yes. When I work with couples, I will often say it is true that we sometimes hurt the ones we love. We do. We sometimes unintentionally traumatize each other in our relationships.
Now, that doesn't necessarily always mean a lie or infidelity. That might mean the trauma was created as a result of an intense fight and someone yelling and screaming, name-calling, or throwing something, and it traumatized their nervous system.
So I normalize that as something that can happen with a lot of couples, and I give them a way through — to better support each other and repair this.
And yes, people very much can work through the repair, as I call it, in as much as the person who created the trauma is willing to do the repair.
Not everybody wants to. Sometimes the person sees it as too much work, and that it will take too long.
Some partners will say, "I don't know what to do. I said I was sorry. I said let's move on."
But I say, "Your partner's nervous system doesn't move on. So we have to support helping your partner's nervous system settle.” When people hear it framed that way, and then they learn how to repair it, they feel very empowered.
This is always one of my goals as a therapist.
Let's say it is the husband who has had an affair of some kind, and they have apologized profusely and want to move on. I will say, "Do you know how hard your wife is working every day to manage her intrusive thoughts when she drives by — in the small community of Squamish — and sees the woman's car go by or at the school? Or as she drives by the other woman’s workplace? Do you know how hard she's working every day just to manage?”
What I see is that couples who demonstrate repair in a very meaningful way to each other usually make it. Do they make it forever? I don't know. But they can make it for a very long period of time.
Can you talk more about the repair and what that looks like?
You're only going to repair the heart of someone if you show up without them having to always ask for it and be in charge of their own repair. So then I'll say to the guy, for example, once a week, twice a week, you might say, "Hey, look, I want to check in with you. We've had this horrible trauma. I imagine there are probably lots of triggers and bad thoughts you have been having. And you're really working hard to manage. I'm here. Do you want to talk to me more about it now or set up a time that works for us to do so? I see how hard you're working to be OK."
Essentially, I will help coach the person who did the betraying on how to show up and demonstrate ongoing repair.
If there has been infidelity that is over, is it better to divulge it or not bring it up?
In my experience, sadly, most people don't tell. They get outed somehow.
But yes, I do think it is better to tell. Even though we're going to traumatize the partner, once the nervous system settles down, the partner will really appreciate the fact that their partner got in touch with the level of severity and trauma and hurt that they now have created.
Showing up is step one to reveal that. Then they can try to start the process of healing. Telling sends the message that you got in touch with the fact that you did a wrong thing and want to start making it right.
And it takes the question off the table of, "You're just doing all the stuff because you got caught."
Finding out any other way is adding another layer of trauma.
Living in Squamish, still a relatively small town, how does that play into recovering from an affair?
When I'm supporting people in Squamish, and they're trying to recover through some kind of attachment betrayal or trauma, that is where the demonstration of the repair becomes especially important from the person who did the betrayal. Especially initially, that needs to be consistent because your partner could bump into the person you had the affair with at the grocery store, or while driving, or you might live on the same street or have to drive by the workplace. There are a lot more triggers in a small town.
It's pretty intense for people in a small town. I really feel for that. But that's why the repair piece needs to be a little more intense in the beginning.
What drives people to have affairs?
The things that drive affairs are symptomatic of a bigger relationship issue.
Two things that are risk factors are relationship loneliness and living parallel lives. Those are the two things and the highest risk for getting sick and having affairs. And sadly, those are common.
I do these in-depth couple assessments frequently and sadly, about 90% of couples — even those who love each other and have a strong desire to be together — feel lonely in their relationship. I say you have to mend that. And then I give couples a map back to rebuilding a strong connection.
The stereotype is that people have affairs because of a physical attraction to someone. Is that not accurate?
People are seeking emotional affairs more than physical ones. I mean, obviously, chemistry and attraction are there. And there are a lot of people having affairs just based on the physical, but there's a shift that's happening, too. There are emotional affairs. One partner meets someone, and it is that feeling and experience like this person wants to get me and know me on a deeper level.
And that is a competing attachment right there. That is a risk if you're not getting that at home. And now you're getting that from your coworker, your friend, your colleague — whoever — and that can start to feel really good.
Do you think the pandemic has played into that? We were — or are — all kind of lonely?
In my mind, the pandemic is a trauma. I feel like the pandemic took all of our collective nervous systems and whatever state our nervous systems were in before the pandemic and how we were coping with stress and our mental health and it cranked it all up.
So therefore, there's a lot more dysregulation because the pandemic is a separation-based trauma.
But I think it brought a lot of couples closer, too.
I know the stats are saying divorce is going through the roof. I know that lawyers are really busy. That is happening. And I definitely saw a lot of people who struggled through the pandemic, for sure.
But I saw more people thrive or want to do couples counselling because they're together 24/7.
They realize they don't date each other. With the pandemic, they don't or didn't go out. They don't know if it's day or night. They are both working from home. They're both wearing the same freaking clothes for days. Everything blends in. So they have these bad habits, but they want to turn the corner.
More generally speaking, do you see more couples breaking up at certain times of the year?
Yes. I started to see this about eight years ago now. It's almost like clockwork that it happens in the fall or the spring.
I think it happens in the fall because people don't want to start a new year with their partners. And in the spring because, I think, people want to grieve over the summer.
You are out more, you do more activities. There is more light. You are less likely to be depressed than during other seasons.
Those are the two reasons I believe it happens more at those times.
Women will often grieve the loss of the relationship when they're in it. A woman typically measures her happiness more on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis. She will become more aware of how unhappy she is and start checking out of the relationship slowly. And that's when the parallel lives start.
The couple starts doing more things apart. Living separate lives.
One indicator of a break-up on the horizon is if one partner fantasizes about their life without the other.
When I work with couples, I will ask them how far they have gone with that in their minds.
And when the woman is finished grieving the relationship and says she wants out, she is usually fine. But what happens is the moment she announces it to her partner or husband, he's traumatized.
Even if there were red flags, males — typically — are big picture thinkers. They hear their partner talk about or express some of their relationship unhappiness, and they interpret that as a bump in the road. We're committed to our relationship and are in it to the end. So, they minimize the severity of their partner's relationship dissatisfaction. As a result, when the partner announces the relationship's ending, they are traumatized by this breakup. This is the day on which their grieving starts.
I will often say to couples in that scenario, that if you can stay away from making any big decisions for approximately three months, do that. Because the trauma of being left needs time for the person's nervous system to come down.
Sadly, when couples don't give their nervous systems time to come down, this is what can fuel a lot of fighting during the separation process.
When there is conflict between parents, should they talk about it with the kids?
I always tell parents to make talking about it easy for their kids. Kids know something is wrong. Just name it. What you say will depend on the kid's age, of course.
But take them aside and maybe say, "I think that you're probably picking up on the fact that mom and dad have been not as happy, hey?" Don't wait for them to come to you. That's asking a kid whose brain isn't fully developed to muster up the courage and the vulnerability and to be sophisticated enough to approach you and say, "Are you and daddy happy?"
Kids are waiting to be approached.
If they are 11 years old and up, they have the capacity to fantasize about their parents separating.
Parents often don't approach when the household isn't doing great, and that's a big mistake. Why it's a big mistake is because these kids are developing beliefs to live by. And the brain shifts around between 11 and 13 years old into idealism. They start hyper-focusing and assessing everything. And what that means is, "I know what the ideal marriage is, and my parents' isn't it."
That's why it's so important when kids are like nine or 10 or 11 up just to make it easy for them. Ask them what the scariest part of hearing you fight is, for example.
And if they say they are afraid you are going to break up, let them know that you understand why that would be scary. You're drawing and inviting your kids' experience so you can allow them to process their internal thoughts and feelings that they're having that they're keeping to themselves.
So how can couples stay strong and prevent betrayal? Of course, counselling is good for everyone, but what else?
Yes, couples counselling. When I work with couples, I do in-depth assessments that involve them completing a series of questionnaires.
I think people should see counselling as maintenance.
But how can couples prevent this? As they are moving through life together, the couple continues to show an investment in always wanting to know one another.
That's the number one thing. Couples just get so into the grind of coexisting and co-managing a life together, and some do it extremely well.
But it's at the cost of not co-creating and co-thriving in the relationship because we're just heads down raising kids, dealing with work pressures and the pressures of the daily grind. And that's the risk. When times are stressful and busy, that's the time when couples need to stay connected.
When couples are going through transitions, they need to stay connected more.
The research says the period from 18 months to three years after the birth of the first child, there's a loss of satisfaction in relationships because people stop knowing each other and aren't checking in with each other.
It's being invested in wanting to know your partner as you move through time together. Couples who do this really have the potential to go the distance.
*Please note that this story has been significantly updated since it was first posted with more details and explanations.
